The Fractured World
Synopsis:
Nothing prepared me for the immediacy and yet intimacy of the poems in Fractured World. Nor the intensely painful revelations about our woundedness and vulnerability, not to mention our despair at being turned into empty vessels by the "game" of a world divided into sides always at war with each other. As "Taking the Field declares, "And this is the way/you play the game/...you are nothing unless you win," says the black booted man who draws a line and tells you, "whoever stands/across that line/is your enemy.../and you must hit him/and you must beat him/until he falls..."The irony in these often bruising poems is that the winner in this game becomes the lost one, the numbed and empty one who moves through his world either enraged or numbed. Scott Owens has given us a powerful, disturbing look at our contemporary fractured world.
Kathryn Stripling Byer, NC Poet Laureate
Scott Owens' poems grab the reader by the throat from the opening line and don't let go, unspooling down the page with verve and startling moments of insight and imagination. He's the real thing.
Ron Rash
“The Fractured World” is a courageous examination of the long term effects of child abuse in our society. Owens’ poems are at times heartbreaking, at times humorous, yet always triumphant.
Book Excerpt:
Norman in the Window, His Eyes Like Shattered Glass
Inside or out you know what has just happened.
The bowl has grown wings and flown
into the wall. The table has lost two legs.
The door has slammed shut. There is blood
on my mother’s face. There is blood
waiting in Norman’s hands.
Norman is in the window.
What I mean is, his hand is in the window.
His common sense came back when he saw
the jagged edge rising just below
his wrist, and he left his hand where it was
uncertain whether to draw it back, slowly,
or grit his teeth and dare the life he’s living.
All she wanted was to keep him here
and now it is she who is leaving,
her children gathered beneath the apron
of her arms. Norman is in the window.
He can see from here the red shape
of her leaving. He can hear her little sobs
through what is broken open. He can see her arms
fluttering like wings around her children.
The welt on her face is already taking
the shape of a hand in a window.
Norman is in the window. He can tell by the pain
in his hand that he is not dreaming.
Even through these broken panes
he can see the last look back.
Even through eyes blood-streaked and cracked
he can tell the skin he’s broken will never heal.Topics/Categories:
Abuse, Dysfunction, Redemption
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Original Publish Date:
August 25, 2008
Formats and associated ISBNs:
9781599481203
Formats:
Paperback
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